Social reinforcement as a function of test anxiety and success-failure experiences.

Abstract

64 7-year-old children of each sex and at low and high levels of anxiety as measured by the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (N = 256) were divided equally into 4 experimental groups according to the type of pretraining (success or failure) and reinforcement condition (social reinforcement or nonreinforcement) in a subsequent marble-sorting task. Performance was higher under social reinforcement and lower under nonreinforcement for low-anxious Ss after success and high-anxious Ss after failure, but similar under the two reinforcement conditions and at an intermediate level for low-anxious Ss after failure and high-anxious Ss after success (p < .01). These results suggested a revision in the incentive